alt Hacker NewsPiracy is justified especially when it comes to movies!
If I am buying a DVD, I own that copy regardless of the studio and the distributor being in legal trouble or not. If I "buy" or "purchase" something online, I expect the same thing.
I'm not always a fan of the EU over-regulating some things but I feel like they should start fining companies who want to re-define the meaning of the word purchase
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This discussion applies to any product from every virtual store, including game stores.
Unless you get an irrevocable full digital copy of the product, the “buy” button should technically be called “lend” or “borrow”, as you lose the product when the shop disappears.
But that doesn’t solve the deteriorating ownership problem as consumers will choose to borrow due to convenience even if they know they get to keep nothing. Especially if that is the “only” option.
Digital products are hollow and short-term, yet still asking full price or even quadruple the price of physical products (happens a lot with games).
Consumer protection would mean that buying means owning, with all perks and hassle that comes with it.
There currently are no long-term protections. “Stop killing games” is a reflection of that, but needs to broaden.
Edit: clarification
Jellyfin + Jellyseer + PassThePopcorn has served me and my friends/family well. I pay $50/mo now for a seedbox with 16TB but it serves 20 people. I would self-host for $0/month but my current apartment only has Xfinity, not AT&T and the upload isn’t enough to self-host.
It’s less about the money and more about:
1) Having a single place to go for any TV show or movie. I found it very frustrating trying to figure out what service had which show - sometimes none of them have it (a few things are still not streamable at all - e.g. “Sharky and George”)
2) Knowing that my streaming service isn’t downgrading the video quality. Even my lay friends notice the picture quality improvement vs Amazon / Hulu etc.
3) Jellyseer lets my friends request media that gets auto-downloaded. So it’s a curated list of content which helps me discover high quality stuff to watch.
However, you will stop owning that copy the moment the DVD deteriorates to the point of becoming unreadable. Physical media is a good start, but DRM-stripped digital is the ideal.
This isn't exactly a case of lack of regulation but IP rights/arrangements expiring. The world needs less IP protection laws, not more.
punishing customers for not using BitTorrent seems like a weird strategy but I’m not an MBA so what do I know
They'll combine the "buy" and "rent" buttons if there's ever any realistic pressure to change. The typical consumer doesn't care.
It's almost already like this. Buying a movie is sometimes the exact same price or only a dollar more. They know what they're doing.
Initially, the new button might say "buy license" and then eventually it will go back to just "buy".
> If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing
https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/08/playstationed/#tyler-jame...